We knew it was coming. There's no way we can say we didn't know, or that we couldn't prepare. The simple fact is we couldn't believe, we gave into ignorance and ignored the truth right in front of us. We saw the sky get darker day by day, how every night the stars seemed so much closer and brighter than before. The now common meteor showers illuminating the sky and were wished upon. Wishes, how foolish it was to wish on these rocks falling through sky and space.
The news often spoke of the climate changing, and how we should prepare for disaster. But school went on as normal, people went to work as normal, no one deterred from their daily life. At first we were wary but after the first month we all decided to ignore it, life goes on as they say. Talk of doomsday went from serious to just some joke we all knew about. Some of us even said, "If we die, we die. Its not like we wouldn't pass on eventually." Those words soon turned into agonized screams of wanting to live.
It was a day like any other, walking to school and people going to work. I remember it so clearly, I was sitting in my math class when my friend called me to the bathroom. "Lets ditch this place to go to the park. Seems like a more pleasant waste of time." We did go, and it was nice. Running around on the grass, laying down and watching the clouds move about. We were on the swings when my friend left to go to the bathroom. I never saw them again.
I was going back and forth when I really looked at the sky. I thought to myself that it didn't look as real as it used to. It seemed more like something out of a painting.
"Mommy look the meteor!" I turned my head and saw a child point to the sky. Looking up I could see it, but it seemed so much closer than before. We all looked on in bewilderment and watched it fall to the ground a bit farther away. We saw the dust cloud come up and the sound of the earth breaking. Then there was another. And another. All around us they started to fall. We only started becoming fearful when it fell into the middle of the park. By then it was too late, we were all caught within the dust and noise of screams and crashes and couldn't see any way out. My friend, I had to find them. Without thinking I ran towards the bathrooms, meteors falling all around me. I didn't notice the dark shadow over me, I didn't notice that I was no longer on the ground. I was falling, lost in the cloud of chaos and devastation. Surrounded by that painted sky.
